More yarny goodness!

I've received my parcels of yarn from Hulu and Black Sheep Wools! Yippee! Hulu dispatched their stock first, and it was also the first parcel I received, so kudos to them. The other took a little bit longer to come, but they had a free worldwide shipping promotion, so it negates the slightly slower delivery time factor. I wish they'd always offer free international shipping! Or at least reduce the shipping costs. Hulu and Deramores offer lower shipping prices, but I find I order more from the former, because Deramores, of all the online yarn retailers that I've purchased from, ships the slowest, and slow shipping is generally a deal-breaker for me, being not the most patient person in the world. Both parcels arrived in good condition, despite the dreadful rainy weather we're having here!

Back to the yarn.

The first parcel contained some KnitPro needles and some balls of Sirdar Snuggly DK acrylic/nylon blend yarn. Since I'm knitting beanies for the premmies at the hospital, I have to use manmade fibres, in case the babies are sensitive to certain natural fibres; but sadly, there are few of this type of baby yarn in 8ply available at local craft stores. I looked around in 2 of the biggest craft stores, and only found 1 type of yarn, which only had 2 colours - cream and dark, musky pink - in stock. I was hoping they'd at least carry the baby pink and blue that I bought last year, but nopes. I want to create not just boring beanies, but cute ones in pastel colours, so I decided to get some online.

 Parcel 2 arrived today and contained RYC Siena, which is a 100% mercerised cotton yarn in 4ply (colourway: Pasture (light green shade)). It feels okay for a cotton yarn, so hopefully it will knit up ok too, without untwisting like a lot of cotton yarns seem to like doing. Although the colour is a nice, soft green that is comfortable on the eyes, I'm now a bit iffy about how it will look once knitted up into the jacket. What do you think? (pattern pictures shown below)

Hmm flat knitting in a 4 ply yarn, with 2.75mm, 3mm and 3.75mm needles... This is going to take me forever to make! It's meant to be a Spring pattern, so I'll put it aside and see what happens then! I've still got so many WIPs to attend too. Argh! I need to keep reminding myself to focus on one project at a time! By the way, in the pattern images, the jacket actually looks a bit big on the model. While I get that the shoulders were a bit puffy back in those days, I'm sure the body of the gowns and jackets were (more) fitted. In the front view, the jacket front looks a bit baggy on her, in a non-flattering way. I wonder if she's wearing a size too big or if it's designed to be a very relaxed fit like that... I hope more people knit this and post their notes and pictures up on Ravelry to give me a better idea of what to expect and to let me know if I should make any mods!

Quadruple chocolate loaf cake!

I was in a bit of a pickle on Friday night. I was to have my last French class of the term the following day, so we were all supposed to bring in a plate of food/drinks. I think since after highschool, whenever I'm asked to bring a plate of food, I automatically associate that with homemade food, mostly in the form of some delicious baked sweet treat. Anyway. I've been preoccupied the whole week with random things, (okay, I'll admit I've been online shopping again, as well as doing that final bit of research before buying a new ultrabook with ivy bridge that I was waiting so long to become available here (and yes, I am using it now - hooray! No more pinching other people's laptops to use!)), so basically, I forgot all about it until Friday afternoon. My plan of action was to bake a batch of my favourite cookies - that is, pecan, chocolate and cranberry oat cookies from Nigella's Feast cookbook - when I got home after work that night, since cookies are the most effortless things to make (minus all the chopping of ingredients involved).

Come 11pm, I look in the larder and gasped in disbelief - there were NO OATS LEFT! There was maybe like 2 tbsp of it left from last time, which is obviously not enough. In panic mode, I reached for my trusty copy of Feast in hope to find another low-effort cookie recipe, which I would have the ingredients for. I was unsuccessful in that arena, but flipped to the chocolate cake chapter and had an "a-ha!" moment when I remembered how well the Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake turned out last time. It was dark, very chocolatey, lusciously moist, and, did I say chocolatey already? It probably sounds a bit funny when I say it's dark, because it's a chocolate cake and would obviously be dark-coloured; but, you know how some chocolate cakes end up a light brown or just a normal brown colour? Well, this one was an intense dark chocolate colour, like mudcake; like as though real chocolate was mixed into the batter. I think I used Nestle baking cocoa last time (I prefer Green and Black's chocolate, which I did use and do still use in everything calling for chocolate, but I found that its brand of cocoa produces a rather lighter brown colour in the resulting cake), but this time I used the Henry Langdon brand of dutched cocoa powder, which I bought from a gourmet food store in Melbourne. I was a bit worried about the colour it would produce, since I've never used this cocoa before, but it turned out wonderfully well, and imparted a deliciously chocolate flavour. It would have been awful if it disappointed, because I think I spent quite a bit of money on it. I had all the ingredients required for this recipe, except for the sour cream, which I ended up substituting with thickened cream, hoping that it wouldn't make too much of a difference.

I stayed up til about 1ish to prep all the ingredients (measuring, chopping, etc), and set my alarm clock for 6am.

Of course I ended up pressing snooze at least twice, but it looked like the sun had just woken up too.

I got on it straight away, still sleepy-eyed.

In the recipe, Nigella says to bake the cake for about an hour. I noted down last time that it actually took 1hr 18 minutes to cook (maybe the pan she used was a wee bit larger?), so I checked every 5 minutes or so after the hour was up to test for doneness. I think it ended up taking even a little bit longer than the 1'18''. It was still a bit sticky in one little spot that I tested, but it is a damp cake and Nigella said it was to be expected. I love her conversational style of instructions!

Done! Look at the intensity of that colour. I must have taken this photo after pouring over the chocolate syrup, because the surface appears so glossy.

There's little holes all over the top from pricking all over with a cake tester, to allow the syrup to seep into the cake evenly.

It must have sat there in its pan on the cooling rack for at least 15 minutes or more, while I madly rushed to finish the rest of my French homework and get ready for class that morning. Needless to say, it wasn't sufficient time for the dense, damp cake to cool completely and it was still steaming and burning my hands when I transferred the sliced cake to the container (didn't want to bring a knife with me to class and to shopping after!). You also have to exercise caution when transferring this cake, especially when in cut slices, because it breaks apart easily, due to its tender moistness (especially when it's still hot!). The pricking through with the cake tester possibly also contributes to its fragility, particularly if you do it in the way I did it - I think the above photo explains it all! The chocolate splinters didn't completely melt onto the surface of the cake this time though, which was good. A taste test proved that using thickened cream produced just as delicious a result as the sour cream. This was definitely good news, because I hardly use sour cream unless I'm using a particular recipe that calls for it, but I almost always buy thickened cream to have as a standby in the fridge, when I plan to improvise random dishes during the week.

All sliced and boxed, with the final sprinkling of the grated chocolate topping added! I used Lindt Dessert 70% dark specialty cooking chocolate for this, because I wanted to emphasise the cake's chocolateyness with its lovely dark colour. And yes, it does taste as amazing as it looks!

I took this photo with the flash. It makes the colours look less accurate somewhat, but it shows better definition, so I thought I'd throw this in as well.

The whole house was filled with chocolate aroma and, since I had to keep the lid off the container in the car, because the cake was still emitting quite a bit of steam, the car was also filled with the strong smell, such that I started to feel quite nauseated! I love the smell of chocolate, but not when I'm hungry from not having breakfast in the morning and from lack of sleep. By the time I got to class, I felt so sick that I was just totally over it, especially since by which point the cake was STILL steaming hot and the aroma was STILL wafting out of the open container, distracting my neighbour (but unlike for me, in a positive way). It was very nice how most of my classmates made an effort to hand-make their plates of food too. Most were sweet though, so there were plenty of left overs! It was a very big compliment when the aforementioned neighbour requested to take some of my cake home. I ended up getting the others to take home the remainder.
I love making chocolate cakes, but the truth is that although I like to eat the occasional little bit of chocolate cake (but only if it's very richly chocolately and delicious, like this particular cake), I'm not actually really a big fan of chocolate cakes and desserts in general. I love eating chocolate out of hand, but it's just not quite the same in baked form for me. Similarly, my family also has this sort of relationship with chocolate, which is why I don't often make chocolate cakes at all. Everyone else I know seems to adore it though!

Knitting yarn fibre scandals

I was looking through some knitting blogs before, and came across articles about court cases over false claims about milk protein content in certain types of yarns, and the absence of cashmere in the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino yarns (acrylic being the real component). Am I the only person who wasn't aware of all this, all of which started about 3 years ago?! I feel so out of the loop! I guess the Australian media doesn't feel the need to report these sort of cases, as yarn is not as big an industry as it is overseas. Fortunately, I am not a big fan of Debbie Bliss yarns and have only ever used two types, both of which aren't 'cashmere' blends - and both of which I didn't enjoy using at all, the horrible stuff. This court case - be the allegations true or otherwise - has reaffirmed my decision to never touch this line of yarn again.

I think I have used yarn with - or claiming to have - milk content before, but not in any of the brands named in the court cases. I was wondering why Rowan Milk Cotton was being discontinued, after releasing so many patterns specifically for this type of yarn. Uh oh - does that mean that they have false label claims too? Just the other night I was thinking of buying a few balls of Milk Cotton Fine to knit the vest in the Mist pattern book by Kim Hargreaves. Oh well! I never liked knitting with cotton yarns anyway, which I find too splitty.

I think there was also some talk about other natural fibres in some yarns being imaginary, like alpaca and the like.. hope they're not true! I have thus far bought most of my alpaca yarn in the Classic Elite and Blue Sky Alpacas brands, or from Purl Alpaca Designs, which are all 100% alpaca. Being from an actual alpaca farm, as the case is for the latter, I'm confident that that lot at least is the real deal.

Who knew that there would and could be so much drama in the knitting world? I know it's still a business, but I associate hand-knitting and yarn with all things homely, natural and real - an ancient art that transcends time and place. I guess that doesn't really carry my meaning across; but the bottom line is that I didn't expect such dishonesty in the yarn industry. One of the reasons why people choose to knit - one of the reasons why I knit - is because I like to be able to control the physical and textural properties of the garment I create. It's also the closest we'll ever get to working with the raw fibres, unless you like to dabble in fibre spinning as well. So it feels so awful that we, as consumers, who promote this handcraft and support the yarn industry, are being deceived by manufacturers. Some people on the Ravelry forum were saying stuff like consumers aren't really being ripped off, because KFI/Debbie Bliss were undercutting the costs of other cashmere yarn-selling companies, so the usual cashmere price wasn't being paid anyway. To me, that makes no sense, because I most certainly would not pay $10 for a ball of wool/acrylic yarn blend (or however much they're charging for it). And anyway, costs aside, the point is, they are deliberately misleading consumers to believe there is a luxurious fibre in the yarn, which is wrong in principle and is illegal besides! The things people would do for money. Unbelievable.

If we are being lied to about fibres in balls of yarn, by big, well-known, expensive brands like Debbie Bliss as well, I wonder how many ready-to-wear items that we pay premiums for in department stores and boutiques contain fake natural fibres too? And there I was thinking that we only have to be careful with fake leather and brands for cosmetics and handbags out there. Speaking of which, be very, VERY careful when you shop for Ted Baker bags. I bought a very pretty patent leather baby pink clutch earlier this year from David Jones, and have since been in love with the brand. I was recently at the department store again to look at their handbags, and was going to buy one in the same shade of shiny baby pink as my clutch; BUT, upon looking at the label for another TB bag and finding that it said it was made of PVC, I checked the pink bag in my hands and found, to my disbelief, that it was also made of PVC and polyester! Needless to say, I did not get it - there was no way I was going to pay $310 (or whatever it was) for a PVC bag! I had a look online, on the House of Fraser website, and noticed that for a lot of the TB products, they actually don't list the materials the bags are made of, which is a bit unsettling. If it wasn't because I saw the label on that bag, I would have assumed that all the TB bags are patent leather, as you would, seeing as some of their products are, and because you would expect genuine leather from that sort of brand and for the price. I wouldn't say they're being deceptive, because they don't have leather claims on those PVC bags, but it is a bit sneaky, especially in the case of online retailers who don't disclose the composition details. I know the wallets are all leather though, and am very glad for that, because I love them so much! So there you go - make sure you check the labels in the bags before you purchase!

In case you're interested in reading about all the kerfuffle that's going on with the yarns (the Debbie Bliss court case is still ongoing, apparently), here are some links I found:

Milk fibre yarns:

http://cascadeyarns.com/milkproteinfiber.asp
http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/yarn/1771136/176-200

Debbie Bliss Cashmerino:


http://www.cascadeyarns.com/lawsuit.asp
http://www.kgw.com/news/business/Wash-kniting-firm-accuses-rival-of-spinning-yarn-105875253.html
http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/yarn/333168/551-575

My conclusion: must get a spinning wheel one of these days, so I can buy fleece directly from the farms and spin them into yarn myself!

Packaged egg whites!

So I was grocery shopping at Woolies the other day and saw a new product on the refrigerated dairy shelf - cartons of egg whites! This would of course be useful for people who have dietary restrictions on egg yolks (due to fats/cholesterol), but would also be a huge convenience for those of us who want to make angel food cake, meringue, macarons, and other delicious things that require only, and a lot of, egg whites, without having to make a heap of custard afterwards to use up the egg yolks (or wasting it all, in the case of those who can't think of anything to make with them). I have, in the past, read about packaged powdered egg whites that serve the same purpose (except that you wouldn't be able to make them into omelettes...right?), but unfortunately, these are not available in Australia; or at least I haven't been able to find such a product. 

I do have some concerns about this product though: for example, what is the consistency like? To be able to accurately measure teaspoonfuls of egg whites, as per the instructions, it would have to be quite runny, and not viscous like fresh egg whites. However, I'm a bit confused about the whole 'replacing 1 large egg' thing anyway. Replacing the VOLUME of the egg yolks with egg whites is not going to produce the same result as if egg yolks were used, especially in baking. My other concern is that it doesn't really tell you the size of egg from which the egg whites were extracted. Of course, this would not be a problem if you measure out your egg whites and yolks by weight; in fact, this product would be fab for these recipes, because you don't have to go through so many fresh eggs to make up the weight. However, most recipes specify small, large or x-large eggs, as opposed to weight.

Other factors which are considered quite important to some consumers include the conditions under which the eggs were laid - caged/cage-free/free range? Are they organic? Were the hens grain-fed? Do the farms meet RSPCA standards? None of these factors are actually specified on the carton. Thus, I'd probably stay away from this product if you have some sort of exacting standards for your eggs.

Personally, I prefer buying free range eggs, for happy hens = better tasting eggs, right? But if at any stage I have to make a large batch of something-or-rather using just egg whites, I might turn a blind eye and opt for this, just for the sake of convenience! 

Eep! More project distractions!

Okay, so it is no secret that I am unable to practise project monogamy. I get distracted by every interesting knitting pattern or yarn that I see, especially when there's some sort of sale on, which, in my mind, justifies a purchase. My biggest problem is that I cannot just look and admire - no, that would not do; I must have it for myself! In this past week, I have bought 5 e-books from the Interweave online store: knit.wear Spring 2012 issue, Boutique Knits by Laura Irwin, Folk hats: 32 Knitting Patterns and Tales from Around the World by Vicki Square, Interweave's Compendium of Finishing Techniques: crochet, embroider, knitting, knotting and weaving, and the set of series 1-4 from Volume 1 of Weldon's Practical Knitter, as compiled by Interweave. I have also bought more Knit Pro cables and interchangeable needle tips, some balls of Sirdar Snuggly DK to add to my premmie beanie-making stash, and 13 balls of Rowan Sienna 4 ply (a 100% mercerised cotton yarn in the green 'Pasture' colour) to make that romantic 19th century-looking fitted jacket by Jennie Atkinson (supplement from issue 42 of The Knitter)....amongst other non-knitting-related things...but let's not focus on that :P 

How gorgeous is that fitted jacket, by the way? Has anyone knitted/started to knit/planning to knit it too? The only off-putting factor for me, however, is that fact that it's knitted on - what was it? - 2.75mm needles?? Oh, and also that all the pieces are knitted flat and have to be seamed together. Ever since learning how to knit in the round, the very thought of knitting something flat seems like a waste of time. Of course I do understand how some garments needs seams for stability yada yada yada.. I am attracted to the interesting shaping of the piece and the bustle (!), but I think knitting the whole thing in one colour, in one type of stitch pattern (stocking stitch, if my memory serves me right) with a fingering weight yarn on tiny needles might become a boring, tedious task. Yep, not for the faint-hearted, but I do like a challenge, albeit maybe only once in a while!  

In the past, I've never really liked the idea of e-books, because I prefer to have the actual hard copy in hand - I like the tactile qualities! Yes, I'm a bit old-school like that.. I only used to get the e-magazines, as not all are imported into my country, and getting an overseas subscription is not very economical, due to P+H costs. However, due to my inability to control my all-things-knitted-related purchases, it's gotten to the stage where there is absolutely no storage space left for neither book nor yarn. Thus, I am turning to e-books now. I guess there are benefits of e-books, besides being able to save physical storage space: one can simply print out the pattern that is being worked on, instead of having to lug around the whole book, if working on the project on the go; the download file for the e-book will always appear under your account (Interweave store), so you don't have to worry about having to search for it in book boxes or about damaging it (providing that online technology doesn't change such that current file formats will become obsolete - in which case, printing out ALL your e-books at the one time will cost a fortune!); and, perhaps the biggest benefit in my opinion, is that no matter where you are - if you go on a holiday, relocate, etc etc and it's not practical or possible to take your huge book collection with you - the books will be available at the click of a button, providing you have access to a laptop, tablet, or even smart phone (and you won't even need internet if you've pre-downloaded the files to your electronic device). In fact, for one of my projects now, I downloaded the pattern onto my phone and am reading the pattern that way - saves me taking out the laptop, especially when I just want to do a spot of pre-bedtime knitting, and would be useful if I want to take my knitting project out and about with me. 

Prior to these distractions, I was merrily working on this Winter's batch of premmie beanies to donate to the local hospital that I have been knitting for for the past 2 years. I'm now up to my 10th one! This time round, they're a bit plain, but I've decided that it's probably more practical to spend the time decorating them to make more hats instead. Also, by leaving them plain, the hospital foundation will hopefully be less likely to sell them this time! I think for this batch, I will stop at 20, for if I don't have a target with a set finish date, the little babies probably won't get these for a while! 

Some of the premmie beanies from the current batch! 

The other project I've started to work on recently is the Side Slip Cloche (the one with the pretty ruffle feature on the headband) from Boutique Knits, which I am making for my sister's birthday present. She wanted a unique beanie that she can wear this Winter, which seems colder than usual (I've never found it cold enough to wear beanies where I am). As you can see from the picture, I haven't gotten very far along.. but the present is belated anyway, so what's an extra week or two, right? 

Knitting the hat band with the ruffles

Meanwhile, I have also been "Should I or should I not?"-ing about buying a yarn I haven't tried before to knit another Great Gatsby Dress, because I love it so much, and a few online stores seem to all be having some sort of sale on some yarns at the moment. As mentioned in a previous post, I want to knit the dress in a more appropriate yarn that will not drag the dress downwards, and which would be suitable for Spring/Summer wear. I was looking at cotton yarns, but don't like working with stringy yarns... and then I was looking at Sublime Merino Cashmere and Silk DK, but I read on Ravelry all the bad reviews about the yarn being splitty and pilly. At the end, I checked the Rowan by Amy Butler Belle Organic DK that I had bought ages ago for that frilled neck edging 3/4 sleeve top in Amy Butler's first book for that yarn, but which I had recently decided was too much of a bother (due to flat knitting and having to bead and seam etc etc) and was going to use them for an 1869 pattern for a knitted corset instead, and serendipitously, it has the same recommended gauge as for the original yarn that's called for, AND it's a 50% organic wool/50% organic cotton blend, which means it should be less stringy and knotty than standard cotton yarn! Not the biggest fan of the look of the yarn or the colour (I bought it because it was the colour used in the pattern picture, in which it actually looked a bit better), but it will do fine. And no excuse to buy more yarn - perfect! :)

A country drive - 'Tea and Niceties' High Tea Review

A boring working weekend has made me reminisce about the lovely time I had last weekend at Mount Tamborine, which is in the Gold Coast Hinterlands. From where we picked up my sister's friend, it took about an hour to get up there by car. My sister had booked for high tea a few weeks in advance, as bookings are essential at Tea and Niceties, so we were going to go, despite the cool weather and the fact that I had a hacking cough. Funnily enough, I hardly coughed while I was up there - must be the good, fresh mountain air. Let me take you on a visual trip there...

Tea and Niceties High Tea Review

The place:

Tea and Niceties is one of the loveliest tearooms I've ever been to. Indeed, I think it is the only proper tearoom I've been to, since most places that offer high tea these days are cafes, bistros, or hotels. From the outside, there are no particularly attractive features that make it stand out, and it's not fully visible from the street view, so most people who visit this place hear of it by word of mouth or from online foodie recommendations. My sister heard about it from a friend; I read about it ages ago on Urban Spoon. 

I was not expecting this when I walked through the door, where we were greeted by one of the friendly staff:

I felt like I was stepping back in time, into an era where traditional tearooms were common, and ladies would don on pretty tea dresses to take afternoon tea and partake in a healthy dose (or not) of daily gossip with their lady friends. For the first time, I felt like I was underdressed for high tea. Being a vintage-style clothing lover, I usually like wearing full skirts and cardies with floral or pearly trims, but had opted for a more casual outfit that day, as I appeared seemingly overdressed for previous high tea settings. This is the place where my wardrobe would totally fit in, but alas, I missed my opportunity!

The room was literally a modestly-sized room that was decorated with small chandeliers hanging off the ceiling, and simple picture frames and decor in coordinating gold, cream and pink colour tones. The tables were covered in clean white tablecloths overlaid with white lace, with faux pink rose centrepieces, and the chairs had cushion tops and their backs were trimmed with pink sashes. The place exudes an old-fashioned charm without being gaudy and pretentious. I do note that it's non-apologetically feminine and most probably targeted towards female tastes. And yes, all the customers and staff that day were female! At this point, I should also mention that the staff were all older ladies, who were very attentive, friendly, and helpful with the tea list - which we will get to. 

Finally a place with tables that are actually big enough to comfortably accommodate for more than 2 lots of cake tiers and all the tea things! 

At the back of the room, they have a bench selling random knick-knacks like old sugar spoons and glasses. The double door at the side leads into the kitchen.

The food:

Even the glasses of water, which were placed there in anticipation of our arrival, seemed that little bit more special with the slice of lemon and sprig of mint in them. 

One could choose to have the 'Traditional Tea' menu ($40pp) or the 'Elegant Tea' ($45pp). We chose the latter, which includes 2 pots of tea and a larger assortment of food. The tea list was quite long and had classic as well as more contemporary options, like the flower and fruit-infused teas. One of the staff suggested we choose 2 pots of tea at a time, so that we could try 4 different teas, as opposed to just getting one type each, which would probably get cold half way through our sitting. We ended up choosing the Stockholm (which ended up to be my favourite), the Japanese Lime (one whiff of it made me decide against even tasting it), Sydney Special (I don't remember this one.. I think it was okay), and Morning Flower (which I didn't like). Yep, I'm definitely a classic tea person. I know I should probably just choose English or Irish Breakfast at the out start, but there's a part of me that urges me to try to be more adventurous.

My Stockholm tea

And tell me these are not the prettiest sugar cubes you've ever seen! I really wanted to try using one of these to see if the icing flower would float or dissolve, but I've slowly become accustomed to taking my tea unsweetened and without milk. My sister did use one, but just pulled the icing flower off to eat!

Besides pretty sugar cubes, we also had the option of loose granulated pink sugar. How very pretty just to have it on the table to look at!

Now we get to the most important part - the food! This is what was presented to us soon after receiving our first pots of tea:

And here's a closer look at the delicacies on each tier:

Bottom tier: Cookie-cutter shaped mini sandwiches with different fillings, e.g. egg; salmon, dill and mayo; cucumber; ham; etc; savoury mini muffins, and little savoury puff pastry squares.

Middle tier: Tiny plain and fruit scones dusted with icing sugar, served with jam and cream; and a little dish of pannacotta topped with slices of fruit and chocolate shapes. 

Top tier: Sweet puff pastry filled with chocolate and cream; chocolate caramel slice; chocolate mousse in a chocolate cup filled with a layer of smooth, runny caramel; a sandwich biscuit with coffee-flavoured buttercream; 2 mini layered sponge cakes - one with jam and the other with lemon curd - frosted with cream and covered in desiccated coconut.

There were tiny clawed tongs included to serve yourself, which were good for the small things like sandwiches, but were too narrow for the bigger items, which we had to either manually stretch the legs of the tongs out for or just use the tongs to push the food directly onto our plates. In the middle tier, they included tiny little spoons to use with the pannacotta, and at each place setting was included the tiniest and cutest knife I've ever seen for cutting the little scones and spreading the cream and jam with.

And, if the photos aren't enough to do the food justice, yes, I can tell you now that the food was scrumptious! I'll admit that I probably ate more here than at any other high teas because of the delightfully dainty bite sizes of each item on offer. I often get put off by large rectangles of sandwiches and huge scones, one look of which is almost enough to make you feel full. Because the high tea menus often comprise of 3 tiers of food, you would think the idea is to allow people to sample everything from each tier. So I was very glad to see that Tea and Niceties made the effort to make all the portions petite, without compromising on the selection and amount of food presented. The scones were needless to say quite yummy, and the pannacotta was the nicest tasting one I've tasted so far.

I ate my share of the everything on the middle and bottom tiers, except for one of the muffins, and I was the only person in our group of four to be able to eat any of the desserts on the top tier! The staff provided everyone with cardboard take-away boxes to take away the left-overs (I suppose most people can't finish their food then), so I will still be able to give you a review of these goodies. My favourite of the desserts would be the little cakes, which were nice and light, but flavoursome and moist. My second favourite would be the mousse. This little thing looks like it would be overly chocolatey and cloyingly sweet, but the mousse is actually quite light and I was delighted by the hidden layer of delicious flowing caramel in the crisp chocolate cup. I'm not a fan of the cookie or the caramel slice, nor did I really enjoy the puff pastry either, but I think in the scheme of things, the menu worked out to be pretty good. Oh, and we were given a chocolate dinner mint afterwards as well, along with a bookmark and a leaflet to remind us of our experience (and to come back obviously!). Just in case you are interested, I asked the lady if the menu changes, and she said that they change it whenever they get bored of making the same things, but even then, usually it is only the fillings that get altered.

I rate Tea and Niceties an 8/10. It lost points because they don't have an adjoined bathroom, so every time someone had to use the bathroom, they had to borrow the key to the public toilet, shared with other shops in the complex, AND walk all the way through the car park and around to the back of the complex, where they had to wait for their turn outside the restroom, because there's only one (unisex) toilet available. The toilet was clean and decorated (with florals! Must be used mainly by customers of the tearoom), but when you're busting to go to the toilet after drinking a lot of tea and lemon water, and there is someone taking their time inside the only toilet, it's hardly a saving grace. On top of that, keep in mind that on the day I went, the weather was wet and unforgivingly cold. Despite this, I will probably visit this tea room again in the future, when I have the time and inclination to go for a long drive. I do highly recommend this place for the service, the atmosphere and the delicious food. It is definitely the most authentic tea room experience I've had thus far.

After our afternoon tea (which was really our lunch), which lasted for about 2 hours, we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring some of the unique little shops in the area. Mount Tamborine - in it's location in the coast hinterlands and the look and style of the shops - reminds me a lot of Montville/Maleny, which are located in the Sunshine Coast hinterlands. In fact, they have a German Cuckoo Clock shop too - maybe it's a branch of the same shop? Here, I bought two manual music boxes that play pretty German melodies.

I really wanted to go check out the fairy shop (shown in the picture immediately below) but we had to hurry home and didn't get a chance to. Oh well, next time! If there is a next time, I'd also like to go on a tour through the winery/vineyard that's in the area too. I've included some random snaps of some of the shops below:

I was excited by "Devonshire Teas" on this signpost! Another thing to put on my 'to do/eat' list!

The hand-made glass pendants actually looked pretty cool, especially how the coloured glass seems to reflect the colour of your shirt, making each piece unique. Still, it is just glass, and I don't really want to pay money to wear a piece of glass around my neck. 

Mount Tamborine is quite a pretty place, which is why a lot of people choose to hold their wedding ceremonies here. If you do decide to go for a country drive here though, I would start the day off early, to ensure you have sufficient time to do everything that you want to do before it gets dark (same for Montville and Maleny). Do let me know about your experiences!

Home time: The winding road down the mountains

First homemade cake for 2012!

So it was my sister's birthday earlier in the week, and, not wanting another cake from The Cheesecake Shop, I decided I'd do the whole family a favour and just make her a cake. I mean, The Cheesecake Shop makes some nice-looking cakes and some of their cheesecakes are absolutely drool-worthy (my favourite being the Riverina Ripple continental cheesecake), but - let's face it - most of their celebration cakes aren't the lightest and tastiest. My dad made the mistake of buying me their "BB" honey cake a few weeks ago for my own birthday, and I was the only one who ate more than one slither - over the whole week the cake was sitting in the fridge for.  

This was to be my first cake for 2012, after not baking much more than just the very occasional batch of my favourite cookies (cranberry, pecan and chocolate oat cookies) for the past 5 months. It's not, of course, because I lost interest in baking - indeed, I don't think that could ever be - but because, to me, cooking/baking is about the celebration of life. If you've been reading my blog, you would know that there hasn't exactly been anything worth celebrating or being terribly happy over this year, thus far. But I think it's time to break out of that cycle and start baking again. As the gorgeous Miranda Kerr says, "Alter your thoughts, and you alter your world". And afterall - 

(Yes, I did get this free with The Cake Boss DVD set (which I haven't watched yet) :) )

The favourite type of birthday cake in my household is the layered sponge cake filled and frosted with whipped chantilly cream and fresh strawberries, with the sides covered in toasted flaked almonds. Despite the strawberry being a Spring fruit, clever farming practices has allowed it to become available almost all year round; however, as we all know, when it's not in its natural season, it never looks or tastes as good. So I was rather surprised when Mum brought this punnet of strawberries home from the supermarket: 

Pinata strawberries 

First of all, let me just say that I've never seen a punnet of strawberries with the berries arranged so orderly in a single layer like this. At $5ish/punnet though, I suppose this isn't really a good thing, cost-wise. There berries were gloriously glossy and red, the hulls were very green and fresh-looking, and most importantly, they're locally grown. I am quite surprised that strawberries that look this good can be found in Winter, without having to cross any state or country borders. They weren't all perfect though - most had a thick white bit at the hull end, which had to be cut off, and the strawberries themselves, though not sour or absolutely bland, did not have the beautiful sweetness we associate with Spring/Summer berries. Still, they were the best I was going to get, and sufficed for my purposes.

I made 2 separate batches of whipped cream: one with the vanilla seeds, for the filling and sides, and the other flavoured with vanilla extract for the top and decorations, which I wanted smooth and white. Part of the latter was separated into another bowl to be tinted green for the leaves. I sliced some of the strawberries to form a single layer between whipped chantilly cream, to form the filling:

I simply love the speckled look of the tiny vanilla seeds in the thick cloud of cream!

I used white sugar daisies that I bought from Latorta at Majura Park Shopping Centre in Canberra to decorate the cake, in an attempt to pass them off as strawberry flowers. I would make my own, except it would take too long for the icing flowers to harden...and I'll admit there is also the lazy factor.

The finished cake!

Time to sing!

For my birthday, Dad had accidentally bought 'special' candles from the cake shop. I blew and blew, but the flame on the candle would stubbornly stay alight, or blow out just to relight again by itself. I almost gave into superstition, thinking that it may be an omen that my wishes won't come true. But then I looked at the candle packaging, and it all made sense!

My honey birthday cake from The Cheesecake Shop and the creepy, abnormal candle

Phew! Was getting a bit freaked out there!

I thought the candle looked a bit weird! Thank goodness we only used ONE candle!

So we thought it would be funny to use one of these candles for my sister's birthday cake - she wasn't aware of this relighting candle business, because she wasn't there for the song-singing/candle-blowing part of my birthday. While I took maybe three goes in all to blow out the flame, she took much, much longer, and after the umpteenth attempt, sending spittle across the cake, we started to think that maybe this joke wasn't such a good idea after all.